Argentina has had bouts with censorship during its history. Today we are well past that if we compare it with the last time the military took power.

What worries me a lot about the ongoing debate about freedom of speech or press freedom in Finland is that a major political party, the PS, is demanding that newsrooms must write what they think is news or give it another slant. What forbids the PS from starting up a newspaper and competing with HS?

We all know the slipery sloop Finland would be on if any political party would start to dictate what newspapers can write.

Why do I think you would be the first to object if someone burned a Finnish flag in Senate Square as a protest against imprisoning conscientious objectors? Somehow I can’t see you as the type that would fight to the death to defend the protestor’s right to express contempt for public policy in Finland in such a manner.

What you are saying is that because you don’t like the limits and responsibilities that the Law places on you in your behaviour towards your fellow man, you think it’s all a pile of crap. Well, that’s a useful argument to make. Haven’t you got anything more useful of detailed to say? What you mentioned sounds pretty meaningless to me.

I think it is probably this part of the manual that sticks most obviously in your throat Duunari:

The elements of proof that are available in this case should consequently suffice to justify the use of Article 17 of the ECHR, since the applicants are essentially trying to use Article 10 to derive from the Convention a right to engage in activities that are contrary to the text and spirit of the Convention, a right that, if granted, would contribute to the destruction of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention.

You do realise that using Freedom of Expression as a defence against hate speech is specifically prohibited in the ECHR? Read Article 17:

“Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the Convention.”

But maybe it is this statement by the European Commission that most annoys those that would seek to reinvent National Socialism on the European stage:

“National Socialism is a totalitarian doctrine incompatible with democracy and human rights and that its adherents undoubtedly pursue aims of the kind referred to in Article 17

You imply that free speech means anything goes. That is not what free speech embodies. Free speech embodies rigths AND responsibilities. Until you understand the latter, you are an enemy of free speech. You are an enemy because hate speech inevitably takes us towards situations where the real rights and freedoms of ALL members of society are undermined, beginning with but certainly not ending with the rights of minorities. Once the argument for restricting the rights of minorities no longer gathers votes because there are fewer and fewer rights to abuse, the next step is to replace ‘free speech’ as a means to stigmatize immigrants with any other vulnerable group whose situation and standing in society is individualised in such a way that they are made to ‘pay the price’ of their own inequality in status and resources, as if they weren’t already paying a price.

I shall read the report in question and try to make some sense of that incoherant nonsense you wrote, unless you want to actually go to the trouble of explaining to your readers exactly what you meant instead of indulging in pointless generalisations and carping about Europe.

Okay Duunari, seeing as you are moaning like a minny about the report, let’s start with this very concise and pertinent first paragraph setting out the framework of the report:

In multicultural societies, which are characterised by a variety of cultures, religions and lifestyles, it is sometimes necessary to reconcile the right to freedom of expression with other rights, such as the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or the right to be free from discrimination. This reconciliation can become a source of problems, because these rights are all fundamental elements of a “democratic society”

And just to illustrate the first point I made to you, Anne Weber goes on to say:

But however vast the scope of freedom of expression,some restrictions to the exercise of this right may in some circumstances be necessary. Unlike the right to freedom of thought (inner conviction or forum internum), the right to freedom of expression (external manifestation or forum externum) is not an absolute right. The exercise of this freedom carries with it certain duties and responsibilities and is subjected to certain restrictions as set out in article 10(2) of the ECHR, in particular those that concern the protection of the rights of others.

See. Freedom of expression is not the same as freedom of thought, and there are very good reasons to place obligations on citizens to respect and understand the difference, even if you really would like to make your thoughts public regardless of the type of offense that you may cause thereby. And what might be ‘true’ to you in your opinions about Muslims, immigrants, Arabs, or Africans may be much less obviously true to the vast majority of people, and in many people’s eyes, would be a downright lie perpetrated on completely false grounds as a means of perpetuating ignorance and prejudice based on ethnicity, class or religion, a prejudice that I’m very happy to say most of Europe has sought to banish from civilised society.

no single citizen should ver have to read a document on 104 pages in order to know how to speak. Never have I been in such great danger as I will be when this will be implemented into the Finnish constitution.

And one can interpret the manual however way, but there are prominent examples (convictions) how the truth is hate speech in other European countries. Therefore problems related to immigration can not be solved and will never be solved with these regulations endangering free speech.

We can only see what you write here, Duunari. We cannot always tell whether you wrote what you intended to write.

This is called coherence. The coherence of this thread is that it began by discussing a decision of JSN dismissing a complaint from PS supporters and upholding the freedom of Kirkko & Kaupunki to publish a cartoon by Ville Ranta. Those PS supporters evidently felt that Kirkko & Kaupunki should not be free to publish the cartoon.

You weighed into the discussion with an argument for absolute freedom of expression, and you described any attempt to restrict this as a manifestation of Communism.

The only logical conclusion is that you feel that the PS supporters were pursuing Communist ideals by trying to restrict the freedom of expression of Kirkko & Kaupunki and its cartoonist.

Of course, it’s also possible that you shot yourself in the foot.

The Finnish immigration is a disaster, how would you solve the problem?

Do you mean Finnish immigration to North America or Sweden?

***

Something tells me that one of our favourite long-standing contributors has found the new site. That would explain the hole in the foot, the still smoking gun and the inebriated troll trying to convince everyone that the weapon wasn’t loaded.

Immigration (derived from Latin: migratio) is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence. Immigration is made for many reasons, including economic, political, family re-unification, natural disaster, poverty or the wish to change one’s surroundings voluntarily.

So when you seek to change the subject to “Finnish immigration” we need to know where the Finnish people concerned are immigrating (compare “third world immigration”, “New Commonwealth immigration” and the phrase “Moslem immigration”, as used by your counter-jihadi and brownshirt buddies). If you had meant the migration of Finnish people to various other countries in general, then you would have said “Finnish migration”, and if you were primarily concerned with the effects of this population haemorrhage on Finland (e.g. the unique phenomenon of holiday return bonuses in Finnish industry), then you would have said “Finnish emigration”. Hence my question.

There are still quite a few people in Sweden who think that Finnish immigration was, as you put it, a “disaster”. Their attitudes can be heard in every discussion of the status of the Finnish language in Sweden. Such attitudes are much less common in North America and Australia.

May be I struggle with spelling, but you fail to understand simple English. Emigration=Mene,go, reise adieu. Immigration= come come, this way sir, kahvi on kaadettu.

you are absolutely right. My point was not to say that the muslim immigration to Europe has been and is by any measure the worst thing Europe has done for decades.

I meant the political attitude that enables it to happen. Including the top story of schengen agreement, the silencing down of criticism etc. You also try to silence down criticism by not answering question and moving on to another topic.

–The Finnish immigration is a disaster, how would you solve the problem? I take you are a foreigner and thus have a more valid arguments.

Could you elaborate? Disaster? That’s pretty strong especially from your perspective. Tell us how immigration policy should work. If you look closely at our immigration policy, it is the sum total of what people like you think it should be.

hmmm, it is a disaster. You can of course think differently, by presenting arguments. Some people are indeed an enrichment when others are not.

I asked Justice demon to say what the devil thinks should be done. No answer.

I am not a politician and do not possess answers but I can only say one thing. Without the right to communicate freely on issues regarding immigration, the problems will persist, get worse or eventually explode. There are currently nearly 1000 people with granted asylum with nowhere to go because no town wants to take them. I guess that can not be called a success-story however you twist it, turn it or analyze it.

Disaster is a good vocabulary for it. Why do towns not want to take asylum seekers? Because it is expensive, the immigrants do not work.

–I asked Justice demon to say what the devil thinks should be done. No answer.

Instead of saying this is a “disaster” why don’t you look at it proactively? If Finland was able to take absorb over 400,000 refugees as a result of the Continuation War, certainly a thousand is a small matter. It’s been done before and can e done today again. We need to stop using terms such as “disaster” when speaking of refugees, who are humans just like you and I.

This thread is now hopelessly off-topic and belongs in the forums, not in a discussion of the JSN decision.

Perhaps it can be moved to the forums, beginning with the second paragraph of the comment made on May 24, 2012 at 10:06 pm. I wonder if this is technically possible.

In any case the terms of reference of such a discussion are hopeless from the beginning: “X is a disaster – discuss”, where X can be anything from nuclear energy to the Finnish national ice hockey team or Halla-aho’s hairstyle.

In this case X was not even formulated in intelligible English, and we have had to spend time giving Duunari an English lesson, which was received in true epähiket style.

Like it or not, and regardless of what happens in your drunken mind, Duunari, any expression of the form “[national adjective] + immigration” refers to migration of members of the specified national group into some new destination country. That is how such expressions are used in English, and if you had paid attention at school instead of giggling and making farting noises at the back of the room, then you would know this.

try to stay to things you comprehend Justicedemon. Immigration was too difficult for you, may be maths is far too difficult.

You could also put it this way Migrant Tales. You are happy to critisize the family reunification rules. You should look at the big picture. What has this procedure cost the Finnish society in the past.

Would the Finnish economy be better if the immigrants had worked a little? If you need a guilty one, blame the immigrants for burdening the welfare system. Because their lacking contribution now their country men and women are stuck where they are.

Why do you repeat your racist lies, Duunari? Is it because you are following the advice of Dr Goebbels, or simply because you are thick?

There is absolutely no evidence that immigrants in Finland are work shy. The place to look for such evidence is Ministry of Labour statistics on reduction of integration allowance due to refusal of work or training. No decisions of this kind have ever been made.

Yes, Duunari – this accusation of yours concerns something that is directly measurable – and the result of that measurement is that we caught you telling lies. The same kind of lies that the Nazis told about Jews. You are either the original Nazi author of these lies, or you are blindly repeating them because you are too dumb to see that they are lies. Which is it?

Do you have a job, Duunari? If so, then you should give it to an immigrant and your problem is solved! The job will be done better as well. If you find another job, then you can give that one to an immigrant too. Keep doing this until all the immigrants are in work. You can stop when some immigrant refuses the job offer or when you run out of immigrants. Then make sure that you find a job of your own, or we will have to conclude by your own epähiket reasoning that you are work shy.

I am self-employed. I guess it could be called a job. But you are out of a job but don’t meet my recruitement standards. No linguistic skills, no comprehension for the read text and no mathematical skills. And certainly not ability to admit a mistake. You run an agenda which is right with no room for developement. Stubborness is lethal.

You are right, immigrants are not work shy. Africa, an amazing continent with different countries. Some nationalities are not work shy, they job-resistent.

You try to shuffle over the blame to the Finnish laws and Räsänen for the policy on family reunification. Ask Somalis, why do not they bother to take care of their country-men. They allways speak about solidarity…I guess they define that in another way.

You make tricky definitions on how to measure the immigrant contribution to the society.

What about Germany, a failure. France, even worse.

””According to the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, mass immigration has to date cost the Dutch taxpayer more than one hundred billion Euros. According to the Danish national bank, every Danish Muslim immigrant costs the Danish state more than 300,000 Euros. A Swedish economist has calculated that mass immigration costs the Swedish taxpayer twenty-seven billion dollars annually. In Norway a warning has been issued to the effect that the proceeds from North Sea oil will have to be spent entirely on mass immigration, while in France official figures have been published suggesting that mass immigration is reducing growth in the French economy by two-thirds. In other words, mass immigration, demographic developments and Islamization are certainly partly causes of Europe’s steadily increasing impoverishment and decay.”

Europe was completely unpopulated two million years ago. If immigration necessarily had a negative economic impact, then it would still be unpopulated now in the same way as Antarctica.

Justify the time scale for your analysis. 5,000 years, 5 days or 5 minutes?

Your ancestors came to Finland from abroad, Duunari. When they did, they were immigrants. Perhaps they should have been driven away, at least for the sake of the gene pool if your example is any basis for judgement. I bet they’d be SO proud at how you turned out.

Duunari, how many Africans do you know personally. And by the words you use in describing Africans, it is clear that any harmony between you and them is light years away.

One of the problems I see with your argument is that it is an ethnic or racial thing. Is skin color so hard for you to accept? Certainly there are all types in every group but one matter is important: benefit of doubt/acceptance.

You haven’t answered a question I asked you Saturday: How do you (an immigrant/newcomer) become a part of Finnish society? Is it just getting a job or what?

”One of the problems I see with your argument is that it is an ethnic or racial thing.”, you can see so because you want to see or you forgot to read the previous.

Sure there are all kinds of indivuduals but what makes the integration easy for Finnish politicians is that we have groups that individual behave nearly all in the same manner. You have to be deficient not to see this, or simply denying it for one reason or another.

It is not a scientific question how one becomes a member of a new society. One should not travel to another country if there is no intention to integrate, or at least pack the bags when see that integration is impossible. Finland, and Finnish people do not want Somalis here, we do not need adult babies, we have enough of them of our own.

Regarding my friends, I do not take idiots as my friends. Idiots can be of all colours.

Unlike you justicedemon, I have a job. Don’t be bitter because Sossu doesn’t enable you enough of Kossu.

English, maths, history, employment are all too difficult for you. And of course, women. Women like it stiff and I am not talking about the attitude (bitterness).

You must have heard of the saying ”life is hard and then you die”, but perhaps not of

”life was hard but I am still live” when you have lost your life to bitterness and stubborness.

Learning new things is an amazing ability that most people have. However, there are a number of people who have lost this skill, on purpose. Stubborness, pride, whatever it is making people backward, retarded and indeed enabling acidical thinking to shorten their lives.

Duunari ”Learning new things is an amazing ability that most people have. However, there are a number of people who have lost this skill”

What have you learnt yourself from the immigrants? Do you think that if people don’t like your monologue talk which is senseless, then they are stubborn? give them chance and opportunity and listen what they are saying and you will understand that reasons and prejudices against immigrants which you display here are quite unjustifiable. Offcourse you are unable to do so but you can blame them from your desk that they are workshy while they genuinely do want jobs. you deliberately attemping to sabotage and hide their contribution to the society. Actually, you need a loony bin so go urgently. We don’t want to hear you stammering out here.

Stubborness, pride, whatever it is making people backward, retarded and indeed enabling acidical thinking to shorten their lives.

You haven’t half written some rubbish in your comments in this post, but I’ll content myself to pick up on this small extract. You seem to be content to ‘individualise’ the problems of poverty, or marginalisation into issues of intelligence, character and honesty. This is contrary to scientific research. The correlations between low socioeconomic status have little to do with intelligence and everything to do with educational attainment; little to do with willingness to work and everything to do with opportunities to work; little to do with making an honest and legal entry into a country looking for an improved situation and everything to do with the response of the natives of that country to that persons colour, country of origin, religion and general appearance.

These facts have been so consistently demonstrated across the world that we might well simply say that people caught up in particular social positions are struggling against more than their own limitations or inadequacy, but rather are struggling against the system itself, especially a system that refuses to take responsibility for the problems arising from that person’s position, and instead seeking to constantly ‘individualise’ the problem such that the person’s character, intelligence and honesty are immediately brought into question.

What I will say is that it is my opinion that anyone who refuses to understand immigrants as people, and seeks to blame them for problems of society or the response of the community to which they move are themselves somewhat lacking in intelligence, dishonest and failing in some essentials of human character. It is no surprise at all to see people who make the accusations are demonstrating exactly the lack to which they so dubiously refer!

my comments are based on perceptions in Europe. Most of the people find it hard to accept that islam does not integrate, to large extent does not want to integrate into the European society.

Islam has made a trap for France or vice versa, France will never survive this. French government regognizes that an immigrant minority eats up a majority of the economy but does nothing to fix the issue.

Frau Merkel refused to read the banker Sarazzin’s book on how islam has destroyed and will do so in Germany, a book on perceptions from everyday life in Germany over a longer period of time.. low education, low employment, high crime. Merkel condemnded the book without reading it.

Spain is also committing suicide. They immigrate more and more north-africans when more and more people of their own leave all across the globe. SPain’s net migration for the past years has been +3/1000 people. In 2011 more than 100 000 people left Spain, manily US and south-america.

Mr Lee from Singapore said that everybody else can be integrated but islam. Britain is not really an ideal on this aspect either. Actually it is an islamic disaster.

The problems strikes solely on islam, they rest of people can behave and need no baby-sitting. And integrate.

Low socioeconomic status might have little to do with intelligence, I think it has more to do with it than you suggest. Of course you should try to see people on an indivudual basis but when trends in a mass scale causing genocide to nations it can no longer be ignored.

US does not have this nonsense that Europe has. They have a very different approach.

Islam has made a trap for France or vice versa, France will never survive this….Spain is also committing suicide….Mr Lee from Singapore said that everybody else can be integrated but islam.

Hot air, Duunari, hot air! The enemy is not Islam or religion, per se, but intolerance. So, you suggest that Islam only comes in one flavour and that is an intolerant flavour, and your response to that is to push intolerance towards Islam. Not only do you fail to see the world for what it is, but your so-called defence of freedom is based on an attack on freedom. Doesn’t add up, does it!? Unless you fascists are just using Islam and paranoia about security as your latest route to power!

The times is slowly coming to an end for islam in Europe, painful end.

So, you are implying what? That 60 million people who are Muslim and Europeans (not including Turks) are to be sent somewhere else? Or are you seeking to ban Islam as a religion?

but when trends in a mass scale causing genocide to nations it can no longer be ignored.

This is plainly insane. Not only that, it is just this kind of insane ideology that is far removed from reality that feeds the Breiviks of this world. Extremism and intolerance are the enemies of democracy, so you do not defend democracy by perpetuating exactly that kind of ideology. How you represent Islam with extreme pessimism and how you advocate for a ‘war against Islam in Europe’ is clearly the worst manifestation of intolerance and extremism. And pointing at Islamic extremism until the cows come home will not cover up for that fact, Duunari! You are as much a danger to Finland as any of those extremists that you hate! It’s not about seeing the ‘truth’ of extremism, it’s about seeing the big picture, of where extremism fits in regard to religion and in regard to moderate religion and political identities. You are a million miles away from having a clear perspective of this.

Instead, you war monger with stories and stereotypes to engender fear and advocate for a clash of civilisations. That is exactly what Al Qaeda do in their ideology! So when do extremists like you decide that you have to ‘fight back’? When your rhetoric of war soaks into every brain cell and not a single jot of common sense or humanity is left, I imagine; when you decide that there must be some ‘sacrifice’ for the greater good, eh? It’s a slippery slope you would take us down, Duunari, and idiots like you should be exposed and opposed, vehemently. You are as much enemies of the modern world as any tribal leader in the wasteland mountains of Waziristan.

Finland has had an Islamic minority for well over a century. Finlandiya Islam Cemaati will celebrate its centenary in 2025. Finland was the first country in Christian Europe to recognise its Islamic minority officially.

It’s only irreligious bigots like you, Duunari, who claim that there is no place for Islam in Finland, and then only because you are trying to force on Finland a foreign idea that you have picked up from fascists in Central Europe.

Those Finnish war veterans fought to rid the world of the racist evil that you are now trying to spread. General Adolf Ehrnrooth made that as plain as day to you dodgy haircut swastika fetishists back in the 1990s.

It was amusing to hear you describing yourself above though. Unemployed, socially inept and sexually dysfunctional. If you want to find out how well you fit the profile, then try buying a tonne of sodium chlorate some time.

doesn’t really fit in with democrazy. when muslims go to they west they think they are superior because of the 7th century barbaric book, nursery school, elementary school, labour market etc.

Racism is one of the biggest weapons of islam. Times have changed since the 90’s, people are no longer fooled by what you claim about Adolf Ehrnroth. Islam still enjoys the support of the multicultural hysteria in Finland because of some blind politicians. The times is slowly coming to an end for islam in Europe, painful end. Majority of muslims are fed up with what’s happening in the middle-east but what do you do when the sword and the fist are talking.

Things that are not even crimes in west, you get either killed or beaten, tortured in the islamic world. Cool, huh?

”So, you suggest that Islam only comes in one flavour and that is an intolerant flavour, and your response to that is to push intolerance towards Islam.”

This is actually true. There was a statement of an head of state in Turkey who said literally like this. One islam, everything else is an insult. The west has invented radical, political, wahabbi, militant etc.

In west it is impossible to be a real muslim, it is human right violation-activity.

There is only one way to tackle barbarity, intolerance towards it.

Justice, doesn’t it get stiff anymore? Has bitterness climbed into the wallpaper? Afraid that people will put you to work? A hint, it won’t kill you.

Just because one person claims there is only one Islam doesn’t mean that makes it so. There are Christians and Christian sects that profess to offer the ONLY path to salvation, but no-one in their right mind would think that means that there is only one flavour of Christianity in the world. Well, you would!

In west it is impossible to be a real muslim, it is human right violation-activity.

This cannot be taken seriously as a political comment. It’s utter childishness and naivety. You start with a definition of Islam that automatically classifies it as ‘opposed to human rights’ and then say, no Muslim can be a real Muslim without violating human rights. It is megalomania, it is absurd, and yet this is very much the position of the anti-Jihadists in Europe. They are intellectually challenged, to say the least!

There is only one way to tackle barbarity, intolerance towards it.

Wonderful sense of superiority you have there. I wonder how the world’s billion Muslims feel about being called Barbarians. It’s this pathetic level of insult and name-calling that you profess is a serious political stance?

Extremism should be opposed, but an absolute fundamental requirement of that opposition is that it does not itself offer extremism as the only alternative. By failing to acknowledge and build bridges with moderate Islam, you basically say you are content to condemn all Islam as ‘barbaric’ and beneath you. And you want to convince me that this is a sensible approach to issues of human rights? You are deluded!

Even if you had been as active for profeminism and women’s rights as long as I have, you still would not have the right to tell me what I think about an issue. Of course, you do not have the courtesy to ask and prefer to imply that I do not value these things. This serves your stupid notion that anyone who would disagree with you cannot possibly have any notion of human rights or women’s rights. I would say that you have very little interest in women’s rights other than it’s a useful issue for you to use to try to justify your prejudice.

The Qoran and the Bible are old texts that reflect a very different era, which are interpreted differently in different parts of the world, at different times. There is as much nonsense written about the role of women in the Bible as there is in the Qoran, including in Leviticus the idea that a woman should sacrifice two pigeons every time she has her period.

Anyhow, no-one is arguing that women’s rights are not an issue in Islamic countries, as they are equally still an issue in the West. The fact that you would try to hijack this issue to justify your religious bigotry is disgusting.

terror-attacks

This is plain ignorance and factually incorrect. In Europe, in the last 10 years, over 80% of the terrorist-related killings have been as a result of separatist politics. No doubt that Breiviks handywork will skew the statistics in another direction again.

Duunari, you are an ignorant fanatic who is far more dangerous than any Muslim I know.

Read again, it won’t skew anything but your fantasies. If you want to get a grip of what is happening in the islamic world, watch the news Yle. Every day people are killed, every week people are executed for not beeing enough islamic.

Women’s right are people trying to deal with in the west. Muslim women fall outside this. They are killed or beaten if they do not apply to the rules. The rules that were invented over 1000 years ago.

You seem to lack compassion for women Mark. I guess your cultural relativism is so injected into your body that culture goes before human rights.

I also know many muslims, they are far more realistic about islam than you are Mark.

You seem to lack compassion for women Mark. I guess your cultural relativism is so injected into your body that culture goes before human rights.

Straw man, Duunari. I’m very passionate about the Rights of Women. And I don’t see your spouting of media headlines as showing me that you have anything like the depth of interest that I have in teh subject. But hey, keep your moral high ground if you really need it. I’m content to know what I think about these issues, even if you cannot be bothered to find out.

I also know many muslims, they are far more realistic about islam than you are Mark.

I very much doubt that. Or do you hide your loathing for their religion when you talk to them?

I understand that the draft community standards for MT are currently under review and should appear here sometime over the summer. Registered commenters will then be able to express their views on these standards.

In any case it is clear that MT will not host illegal content, and that the threshold for designating content illegal is likely to be rather lower when the commenter is anonymous. As an anonymous commenter you are effectively saying that you want MT to take legal responsibility for your comments.

In the meantime, you might like to see how your comments would fare under the community standards of the Guardian, particular in relation to topic relevance, trolling, misrepresentation and flaming.